Summary: Meet Kawanishi Taiga, a short-tempered pinch server with a scarred past. Meet Nishinoya Yuu, Karasuno Volleyball Team's Guardian Deity. They quarrel all the time but they make a good team. And it all started with a "one-man army" t-shirt. In which a Tigress joins the ranks of Crows.

Disclaimer: I don't own Haikyuu!, by the way, y'know, if you ever get confused about it.

Thanks to LittleWordsOnKites for beta-ing my story!

Chapter1: A Chance Meeting

Text Message from 'Mother'

'Don't forget your appointment with Dr. Nox tomorrow, honey. I love you.'

Taiga huffed in irritation, her brown bangs blowing with her breath, as she kept looking at her cell phone's screen, like if she dug a hole through the device everything was going to be solved.

Yeah, right. Like that would work. But maybe somewhere deep inside, some tiny part of her genuinely hoped so. After all, no teenager enjoyed spending two hours with a psychiatrist every two weeks, or having their appointment with said specialist reminded to them by their mother, in the form of a pressuring text message.

Her mother knew very well that Taiga was reluctant about the therapy sessions, and she wanted to ensure that her daughter did her best to get better. No matter how frustrated it would make Taiga.

Now, she could feel a much too familiar stinging sensation sneaking up on her shoulders, much too humiliatingly; a right-on-time reminder why she was receiving psychiatry treatment in the first place. And if the pain got worse, she knew she was going to have to lie in bed all day.

So Taiga tried to calm herself, breathing through her nose. Her phone was kind of important and not exactly cheap. So she gave up on the digging a hole thing and erased the message from local memory, for once. Then she thought about the one thing she was looking forward to, which being the martial arts practice in an hour. She tried to imagine that satisfactory feeling of beating someone much bigger than herself, the feeling on her palm when she successfully hit a weak area on opponent's body.

Not like her bad mood was completely gone, but she wasn't explosively anxious anymore. She started packing for her training session, realized that she was missing some things since she had just moved in with her grandparents. Like a proper water bottle and a stack of t-shirts. So she decided to take a quick trip to Karasuno Shopping Center before heading to practice.

Thus, half an hour later she was in front of the mall, wearing jeans, a grey hoody and a red sports hat. Her hair was pulled back in a bun and was concealed under both hat and hoody.

Usually, just pulling the hood over her head made the girl invisible in crowd since she was on the short side. But today, with sports hat also covering a part of her face, she felt extra comfortable. She didn't see people's faces and people couldn't see her. Though it was a bit hot in this late March.

Oh, there!

As soon as she arrived at clothes section, she eyed the corner where they keep the kind of t-shirts she liked to wear. A couple of days ago, she hadn't had enough money on her but she had been thinking of buying the one that was written 'one-man army'* on the back. She walked there happily -this seemed to be the last one, how lucky she was-, grabbed the hanger but… she felt a resistance.

When she looked up and saw a boy, just a tad taller than herself, holding the other end of the hanger; for some reason, she knew she was in trouble.

Now, Nishinoya Yuu might seem like a quarrelsome person. He is very temperamental; he doesn't bother to filter his words and blurts out what he thinks. He is very excitable, yes. But that doesn't mean that he just picks fights out of nowhere or doesn't respect other people. Just the opposite, in fact.

Nishinoya fought when it was necessary and he gave people the respect they deserved, especially his upperclassmen -no matter how wimpy they may be, like a particular one he had had some problems going on-, and of course he expected the same kind of respect from his underclassmen.

That's why he felt really annoyed about the fact that a brat with a fancy sports hat didn't seem to be letting go of the "one-man army" shirt; the t-shirt, which he really liked to wear and his only consolation in these days as he was suspended from school and banned from club.

Brat was shorter than the libero so it was only natural that Noya thought of *him* as a middle schooler. It was hard to find a high school boy who was shrter than him, after all. So it was perfectly natural that he expected said middle schooler to give up the shirt.

Also, Nishinoya still retained a bit of his anger from his still fresh confrontation with Asahi and that meant he was kind-of in a bad mood.

So libero didn't really tried to ask nicely when he said "Hey, you mind?"

"I claimed it first" brat answered. His voice was very girly, too. Maybe he was actually an elementary student?

Nishinoya pulled harder, so did brat. And heck, he was stronger than libero had expected. Soon after, it was a tug-of-hanger war.

"Look kid, you probably don't get it but I'm a high school student, which means I'm a senpai to you. Got it? Go, find yourself another T-shirt." Nishinoya said, as little veins popped in his head.

"In your dreams."

Yeah, he was asking for it. So Nishinoya just let go of the hanger and let the smartass brat thrown back. However, instead of falling on his back in a comical manner like libero though he would, shorter boy made a perfect somersault turn and landed on her feet.

Wait.

Her?

"Weren't you a boy?!"

Imagine Nishinoya's horror when hat flew off her head and brown hair fell off her shoulders. He would never think of doing something like that to a girl no matter how disrespectful of a brat she would behave. Also how was she able to do a somersault like that and balance herself?

"Are you OK, miss?"

As expected, that would attract attention.

Brunette girl ignored employee's question and gave Nishinoya a glare that could make a normal man piss their pants. Before libero could say something, however, her eyes darted to something else on the floor. Noya followed her line of sight and in that moment both teenagers dashed towards the T-shirt that was sprawled on the floor between them.

Of course, there was no way Nishinoya would lose in this match. He dived after the item with the perfect form honed through his volleyball career as a libero and of course got back on his feet very quickly after catching it.

Noya smirked and his eyes shined with trump as he lived the refreshing feeling that is to look down on someone, not to mention after a complete victory.

"Close" he said, dealing the finishing blow and then sprinted to the cash point before the girl could get up and attack him. Because he could feel the killing intent ooze from her, and honestly? Nishinoya wasn't sure he could beat that girl in a fistfight.

And yes he meant it.

He didn't know who that girl was but she gave the impression of a dangerous tigress.

A/N:

*: In manga, when Nishinoya made his debut and received Kageyama's serve, the kanji written on his shirt is "one-man army". And the time of this chapter is a while before he returns to the school and club activities so, yeah that makes sense .

Also, the names.

The kanji in Nishinoya's name are West, valley and evening. Asahi and Nishinoya are foils and their personalities and even the kanji in their names are contrasting each other. (Azumane Asahi, East, peak, morning sun)

So I made Taiga's name to have a common kanji with Nishinoya's, since I plan her character to be similar to him in some aspects.

The kanji in Kawanishi (川 西) are River and west. River symbolizes her fiery character and also rivers can be in valleys :) And 'Nishi, west' is the same kanji as Nishinoya. Taiga is the Japanese pronunciation of the word 'tiger'.

What did you think about the chapter? Tell me in your reviews :)